Development control and the natural environment—the Maltese connection

The aim of this study was to evaluate the implementation of the Maltese Structure Plan policies, which have been in force since 1992, with respect to protection of the natural environment. Empirical and statistical analyses of development control data were used to achieve the objectives. The Temporary Provisions Schemes (1988) defined the limits of development in Malta thus establishing the rest of the area, commonly known as Outside Development Zone (ODZ). Significant pressures from development were caused when permissions were given in breach of planning policies. The agricultural and dwellings groups of developments were the ones which benefited most from such policy breaches. It was also shown that the Structure Plan policies had a positive effect on the decision-making process ODZs only when the decision boards applied these policies correctly.     

Aimé Césaire 1913–2008

In a necessarily selective way, this paper explores the historiographical evolution of ‘settler colonialism’ as a category of analysis during the second half of the twentieth century. It identifies three main passages in its development. At first (until the 1960s), ‘settlers’, ‘settlement’ and ‘colonisation’ are understood as entirely unrelated to colonialism. The two do not occupy the same analytical field, pioneering endeavours are located in ‘empty’ settings and the presence and persistence of indigenous ‘Others’ is comprehensively disavowed. In a second stage (until the late 1970s), ‘settler colonialism’ as a compound identifies one specific type of diehard colonialism, an ongoing and uncompromising form of hyper-colonialism characterised by enhanced aggressiveness and exploitation (a form that had by then been challenged by a number of anti-colonial insurgencies). During a third phase (from the late 1970s and throughout the first half of the 1980s), settler colonialism is identified by a capacity to bring into being high standards of living and economic development. As such, settler colonialism is understood as the opposite of colonialism and associated underdevelopment and political fragmentation. It is only at the conclusion of a number of successive interpretative moments that ‘settler colonial’ phenomena could be theorised as related to, and yet distinct from, colonial ones. On the basis of this transformations, beginning from approximately the mid-1990s, ‘settler colonial studies’ as an autonomous scholarly field could then consolidate.